HTML sitemap vs XML sitemap

HTML Sitemap vs XML Sitemap: What Google Just Said

On Google's Search Off the Record podcast, John Mueller and Martin Splitt discussed HTML sitemaps. Mueller said an HTML sitemap is a map of a website for users and doesn't replace an XML sitemap, because it can't be submitted or processed the same way. Crawlers can still follow its links. He suggested listing key categories, not every page. For AI search, plain HTML links matter because most AI crawlers don't run JavaScript, and accurate XML sitemaps with lastmod dates help Bing, which powers many AI answers.